Artist Gordin explores abandoned buildings in Estonia, including a closed old manor

Aleksei Gordin is an artist, blogger and experienced urban explorer who has been investigating abandoned buildings for more than 20 years. In recent years he has turned the hobby into a popular blog. A crew from Horizont, the Russian-language programme of Estonian public broadcaster ERR, visited one of the old manor houses with him. Outsiders are normally not admitted, but the owner made an exception for the film crew.

Interest from childhood

Gordin says his fascination with ruins goes back to childhood. In his youth there were many abandoned places, there were no playgrounds, so children played on construction sites, and as teenagers they hung out in abandoned buildings because nobody had a flat of their own. His main rule is to watch your step so as not to fall through the floor. Animal waste is another reason to look down: foxes and badgers move into empty houses.

The manor and its history

Gordin says the manor may be Swedish or German in origin, though he does not know its history precisely. In his view, like many manors, it was nationalised during the first period of Estonian independence, when the Baltic Germans were forced out. He believes it housed a school or an orphanage. The other wing, according to the programme's reporter, dates from the Soviet era; Gordin thinks pensioners most likely lived out their days there. A television, furniture, dishes and books remain, the books damaged by mould. A postcard dated 2003 addressed to a Lilia Konstantinovna was also found.

Risks and the code

Gordin has twice experienced collapses: in an abandoned radio station a ceiling chunk about three metres across fell behind him, and in an abandoned wooden house in Pärnu a staircase collapsed just after he went down it. In his videos he stages absurd art performances, most notably general cleaning. He never publishes exact coordinates, because, he says, groups of vandals quickly turn such places into dumps.

The stalkers' code requires respecting private property, breaking nothing and leaving no trace. In Gordin's view such buildings have two possible fates: restoration or collapse. What attracts him is a place beginning to live by the laws of nature rather than those of people.